2020 - Help us Raise £20,000!

Our 2020 fundraising campaign will see us raise £20,000 to develop new vital services in our communities by 2020. We’ll be creating a jam packed calendar full of fundraising events over the next year, engaging with businesses and people in the local communities where we work and asking them to further support their neighbours when they need it most.

How?

We’re reaching out to local individuals and organisations to encourage them to fundraise for us. From a bake sale to an abseil – the events can be big or small – every little helps us to reach our overall goal in providing preventative and supportive advocacy in the community.

What are we raising money for?

We want to help build stronger, more resilient communities. The money we fund from 2020 will go directly into funding supportive and preventative advocacy in the North-West. We currently have NO funding for these services and hate turning people away who need our help. Can you help us to help them and start fundraising now and help us achieve our mission of Advocacy for All?

Watch our short video below.

Here’s what your money will go towards:

Helping Veterans – we want to help veterans and their families when they need it most. Support with such things as health, housing, financial, family or social problems when they have left the military

Helping people access a healthcare provider –Some people just can’t get to a GP, hospital appointment or health practitioner. They may be scared, frail, or alone. They may even have severe learning difficulties and need additional support to attend appointments. Your fundraising will help us support these people to access the right treatment when they need it

Combatting loneliness – we need money to reach out and help isolated people in the community via befriending programmes, just £20 covers the expenses for one of our volunteers to visit someone who can often go days or weeks without seeing another person

Mental Health Services – we will use money to help people with ill mental health access local services and understand the range of services available to them. We will equip them with self-advocacy skills and help them to access support networks in their communities

Children’s Mental Health – combatting mental health stigma and understanding mental health starts from an early age, we want to launch a new programme for the county’s schools and colleges via our Time to Change team, which will support a child’s emotional health and wellbeing and help them grow into resilient adults.

Mental Health and Wellbeing Pop Up Stands – we need funds to provide local mental health screening and wellbeing stands across Lancashire to help people identify if they need further support regarding their health and wellbeing and how to access it.

How can you get involved?

Choose and plan your own fundraising event! Run a marathon, hold a bake sale, shave your head or jump out of a plane – you can choose to do anything you want, big or small! Let us know what you’re planning and we’ll work with you to shout about it and get fundraising.

How do I fundraise?

Just like many other giving websites out there, you can create your own Giving Page right here via the Advocacy Focus website. Then you can share this and ask for your friends to donate in the run up to your event. All donations are completely secure and use the Stripe payment system.

Why be part of 2020?

How often do you get to help people in your local community when they need it most? People that are often missed by health or social services or don’t meet the thresholds for treatment. We call this preventative advocacy, because some of these approaches can actually prevent people from needing a specialist Advocate further down the line. This form of advocacy is so important as it reaches out to the isolated, the very young or those people who are struggling, but can’t or are unable to get help.

You might be asking if £20,000 can really cover all that. The answer is it can’t, we will still need more money, but £20,000 is a good starting point to embed these services into our core offer and start to help people that fall between the cracks.

For example, here’s what we can do with £20,000:

Fund 571 hours of advocacy support

Fund 1,000 volunteers’ expenses to reach isolated people in the community

Fund 2,000 drop ins for people who need help and advice in the community

All of our team members at Advocacy Focus provide professional service combined with specialist skills. We offer friendly, accessible and high quality advocacy right across our team of dedicated staff, volunteers and trustees.